Wato hatchet job on Jeremy Corbyn

The idea that I’m some kind of racist or anti-Semitic person is beyond appalling, disgusting and deeply offensive. — Jeremy Corbyn

This campaign is attracting a lot of people young and old, black and white, Muslim, Hindu and Jewish. Everybody has come together. — Jeremy Corbyn

I’ve done over 70 events in the last six or eight weeks since the campaign started and the attendances are getting bigger and bigger. — Jeremy Corbyn

Last week and this week, Wato (BBC Radio 4 lunchtime news) has invited all four of the Labour Party leadership contenders to participate in a question and answer sessions with listeners. Today was the turn of Jeremy Corbyn to be invited to answer questions on Wato. What took place was a hatchet job, a biassed profile to display Jeremy Corbyn in a bad light, extremely biased and loaded questions, not even a pretence at balance or impartiality. The presenter Martha Kearney was nothing less than a disgrace, aggressive questioning, repeated interruptions when Jeremy Corbyn attempted to answer questions put by listeners.

Flawed economic policies. Unelectable. Friend of Hamas. Anti-Semite, inviting anti-Semites into Labour and reliant upon their support. Invitation to a Nazi sympathiser to the House of Commons. Resignation if no support from Labour supporters.

Austerity does not work. Quantitative Easing did nothing other than hand money to bankers, make the rich richer, inflated the bonuses of bankers. To offer an alternative to austerity, is thus to have a credible economics policy.

The woman attacking Jeremy Corbyn over Hamas came across as a fundamentalist Zionist. When inviting people to the House of Commons, it is tradition to refer to them as friends. Jeremy Corbyn has talked to Hamas together with other parliamentarians. That does not mean he supports atrocities committed by Hamas. A former Head of Mossad has said talks with Hamas must take place. Tony Blair talked to Hamas.

Jeremy Corbyn has spent his life fighting racism, striving for peace in the Middle East. To describe him as anti-Semitic, is just one of the many smears he is being subjected to by ever desperate opponents. Anyone who dares criticise Israel and its occupation of Palestine and ethnic cleansing of Palestinians, is automatically labelled anti-Semitic by Zionists. If a Jew, then labelled self-hater or Jew-hater.

The Nazi sympathiser Jeremy Corbyn was alleged to have invited to the House of Commons, Jeremy Corbyn did not know who he was, but still the presenter persisted in asking the question.

Note: Jeremy Corbyn has since checked. He once shared a platform, but could not recall either the name or meeting him, and certainly does not share his views.

Newcastle Opera House 1500 people inside and 500 on the street outside

Jeremy Corbyn speaks to packed meetings across the country. Often he has to hold to a second meeting to talk to those outside who could not get in. To therefore claim he lacks credibility, lacks support. is clearly nonsense. And unlike Labour meetings of old, these are not set piece stage managed meetings. People attend, of all ages, because they are enthused they wish to see change, the are sick and tired of the Labour Party Establishment.

Brian Reade:

Inside the hall it feels like I’m back in Scotland during last year’s referendum. There is an electric buzz in the air. A sense of liberation.

He tells them “the levels of inequality in this country are the worst in Europe. Surely we can do something very different?”

He says he wants to see a “fundamental change to our politics” centred on “a basic humanity.”

He tells them that their “optimism” this summer “has produced a big change in how we do politics.”

When he finishes, all 1,280 supporters leap to their feet roaring their lungs out, yelling for more.

When I take a straw poll of why they are transfixed by a pension-aged backbencher who has spent most of his time in Westminster opposing his party the same words come back. Because he’s “authentic, real, a breath of fresh air, decent, straight, principled, genuine.”

He has been packing out 1,000-plus auditoria across the land for weeks. They’ve had to move rallies to bigger venues and set up overspill rooms.

His own Twitter account following now stands at 104, 000. It was below 32,000 when the campaign begin.

This is a phenomenon, the like of which I haven’t seen in 40 years of watching Labour from close-quarters.

Because it’s feeding off an aching for change that’s coming from ordinary Labour supporters below, not being imposed by rulers from above.

Ed Miliband in four years as Labour leader, did not make a difference to Labour Party membership, then at around 200,000. Jeremy Corbyn in a mere four months has increased to over 600,000.

This leadership election by widening who can take part, is the most democratic in the Western World. But all we hear from the Labour Establishment is calls of infiltration, of weeding people out, of suspending the election. Why, because their days are numbered, the gravy train is over?

Jeremy Corbyn has said if he wins, he wishes to make more democratic, grass roots involvement, not diktat from the leader.

The only way Labour can win, is to have a massive grass roots movement behind it pushing for social change.

Jeremy Corbyn is attracting people from all walks of life, young and old, black and white, Muslim, Hindu and Jewish. Everybody has come together. The only people he is not attracting is the Labour Establishment, who are launching their poisonous and venomous attacks every day.

A similar self-selecting readers poll in the Mirror (Mirror has urged its readers to vote Andy Burnham):

Jeremy Corbyn ===> 78%

Andy Burnham ===> 12%

Liz Kendall ===> 5%

Yvette Cooper ===> 5%

Jeremy Corbyn has a positive, forward looking radical message. The best his opponents can offer, is we are against Jeremy Corbyn. They are bankrupt of ideas. They lost the last two elections by offering the same tired old policies that the Tories are offering, in reality puppets of bankers and global corporations. These failed policies have no popular support, the only beneficences are the rich and the powerful.

This not about power, which is all the Labour Establishment obsesses about, it is about change, participation, at all levels of society. It is about wresting control from the powerful, dealing with tax dodgers, stopping the exploitation of the poor.

The British people are not interested in politics, leave it to a professional political class, who have never done an honest day’s work in their life, self serving pigs with their snouts n the trough, who never get their hands dirty with ordinary people, except at election time, when they want your tick in a box to legitimise a sham democracy, and even then, they are shepherded around by advisers, and hangers on, to ensure the public never get too close. At least that is what we are told. Politics is something foreigners do, riots on the street, look at Spain, look at Greece. And yet, look to Scotland, look to Frome in Somerset where ordinary people with their Flatpack Democracy revolution seized control of Frome Town Hall. We were told the days of political meetings, where Winston Churchill would address packed meeting, were long gone. We were in an era of meaningless sound bites, focus groups, candidates imposed upon local political parties, then imposed on the electorate. As Jeremy Corbyn speaking to packed and overflowing meetings has shown, they were all so wrong.

One Response to “Wato hatchet job on Jeremy Corbyn”

I asked one of the questions to Corbyn and just wanted to state for the record that the question was my own, no one put me up to asking it and that Corbyn did not answer it. At no point in my question was he personally accused of anti-semitism, so I’m not sure why he answered my question with the statement that he wasn’t anti-Semitic.

I asked why he hadn’t condemned those of his supporters who HAD posted anti-Semitic material online. And his response? “I’m not anti-Semitic!”